Midjourney Keywords: Top Prompt Terms Guide

We’ve been experimenting quite a bit with Midjourney keywords. The difference between a good output and great output is in the words or terms you use within your prompt.

Apart from the basic commands, there are powerful keywords that will drastically improve the quality of your Midjourney images.

If you want to create lifelike photographs or awe-inspiring works of digital art, we found some Midjourney keywords that will save you hours.

There are also a ton of keywords that seem to appear in everyone’s prompts that you don’t actually need to include.

In the post, we will cover the best Midjourney keywords and show you the most productive way to incorporate these words into your AI image prompts.

Midjourney Keywords for Realistic Photographs

Generative AI image models have made leaps and bounds in terms of photorealism.

Using Midjourney to generate photos is a great way to develop content for social media, blogs, and other projects.

With Midjourney version 5, you can generate lifelike photos with very simple prompts.

There are countless styles of photography so it’s helpful to have a particular vision in mind before you get started prompting. For example, are you looking for a dramatic black-and-white image or do you want a hyper-detailed nature shot?

Best Midjourney image keywords we’ve come across:

Pulitzer Prize-winning photography

Fashion photography

Automotive photography rolling shot

Bokeh

Volumetric Lighting

Beautiful Lighting

Golden Hour

Depth of Field

Soft natural lighting

Film grain

Portraits:

Clear facial features

f/1.8

Landscape:

35mm

F22

Cinematic

Wide-angle lens

–ar 16:9

Midjourney Photographer Inspiration

This method is particularly powerful because it allows you to incorporate the styles of the best photographers of all time.

Use the below reference guide to identify a particular style that appeals to you. Then simply add [photo by “name”] to your Midjourney prompt.

Midjourney Photographer Reference Sheet [Source: /u/ddmkr]

Midjourney Photo Angles

For even greater control over your image output, try using some keywords to guide the image composition.

Here are a few you can add:

Full-Shot Angle: This angle captures the entire subject in the frame.

Full-Body Shot: This shot shows the subject from head to toe.

Wide-Angle Shot: To capture a broader view, the camera is pulled back from the subject.

Ultra-Wide Angle: This shot pulls the camera back even further to capture an even wider view.

Eye-Level Shot: The camera is aligned with the subject’s eye level for this shot.

Far-Shot Angle: This angle creates the impression that the subject is far away and small.

Medium-Shot Angle: To capture the subject from a medium distance, this shot is typically taken from knee-level looking up.

Ground-Shot Angle: This shot captures the subject from a low angle, typically from knee-level looking down.

Low-Angle Shot: Taken from a low angle, typically from the ground, this shot looks up at the subject.

Glamour Shot: This shot uses various techniques such as zooming and lighting to flatter and enhance the subject’s appearance.

Best Keywords for Digital Art

In addition to photos, Midjourney is great at generating a massive variety of digital content.

This is perfect if you need assets for a website, app, or social media video. There are a ton of different digital set styles ranging from 3d renders to anime to various vector images.

Tip: Look at the prompts of your favorite images in Midjourney showcase for inspiration

List of keywords we saw in the best digital art prompts across both Reddit and Midjourney showcase:

Unreal

Unity

Cinema4d

Vector

Blender

Vray

3d art

CG rendering

Digital painting

Pixar trend

If you want specific illustrators for graphic images, check out this list.

Unnecessary Midjourney Keywords

You may have come across some mIdjourney image prompts that seem to span several lines. While some advanced users will stuff up to 50 keywords into a single prompt, we have found that this is not necessary in 90% of cases.

The benefit of writing short prompts is that they are easier to manage. It is simpler to add and remove words to these prompts to better understand which terms are more important to your prompt.

There is actually a soft maximum of roughly 60 words in a Midjourney prompt.

The influence of words drops off linearly as the prompt gets longer.

As a result, the outcome is that the more words used in your prompt, the less chance the image will be what you want it to be. However, you can get around this issue by using Midjourney commands related to weights or multi prompts.

Common Midjourney keywords that you probably don’t need to include in your prompt:

• 4k
• 8k
• High-def
• HD
• VFX
• SFX
• UHD

If you come across a pre-written prompt with these words, feel free to try removing the terms. This will help you generate an image that is closer to what you originally intended.

Remember that the most important part of the prompt is the object and setting.

You can always add modifier keywords to your prompt after you nail the basic composition. 

Conclusion

Our lists above are by no means exhaustive.

Some great resources to find more Midjourney keywords include the Midjourney subreddit, Discord, and the community website.

If you’re not keen on typing out your own Midjourney prompts, we also did a deep dive into Midjourney prompt generators. These tools and methods can fast-track your Midjourney workflow.

In the meantime, we’re obsessed with tinkering on Midjourney so keep an eye out for actionable guides like this one by subscribing to our newsletter.